Restored: First Image of the Earth from the Moon
Pictured above is the first image ever taken of the Earth from the Moon.
The image was taken in 1966 by
Lunar Orbiter 1 and heralded by then-journalists as the
Image of the Century.
It was taken about two years before the
Apollo 8 crew snapped its
more famous color cousin.
Recently, modern technology has allowed the recovery of
higher resolution images from old data sources such as
Lunar Orbiter tapes than ever before.
Specifically, recovery of the
above image was initiated 20 years ago
by Nancy Evans, and completed recently
by Dennis Wingo and Keith Cowing who lead the
Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery
Project.
Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery
Project.
Images like
that above carry more than aesthetic value -- comparison to
recent high definition images of the
Moon
enables investigations into how the
Moon has been changing.